


She recited a poem

by gardnerhill



Category: due South
Genre: Blood, Catholic Rosary, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Prayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 10:50:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1131767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Words have power - even sacred words in the mouth of the jaded.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She recited a poem

Blood was what Vecchio saw as he whipped around the corner. Blood bright and red, redder than the uniform it drenched, wet and glistening, pooling below the crumpled man.

 

_Benny –_

 

The cold-blooded Chicago cop kicked the stricken friend to one side and took over Vecchio's mind. Without hesitation his gun went up and he squeezed off a round at the fleeing gunman, dropping the man in his tracks. Down for the count, that one's for the meat wagon, he was on automatic suspension and facing an inquiry board after this and he didn't give a fuck.

 

Perp's victim still breathing, trying to apply direct pressure himself to the femoral artery, not enough strength any more, skin a pallid cast, he was bleeding out, he would die before the ambulance got here –

 

Cop snapped up the cell phone, snapped out street names and symptoms and code numbers, and went away. It was Friend who dropped to apply himself to keeping Mountie-red blood in Mountie blood vessels.

 

Sticky and slippery and hot, he could feel the blood pulsing out against his fingers as they skidded in the torn wet flesh of the wound, firmly gathering the edges, pressing hard, hard, entry wound, scrabbling around the broad limp thigh to take hold of the exit wound, squeeze, slow the flow down, stop it, stop it, goddammit stop it, Benny was a dike and Ray was a little Dutch boy, the plasma North Seas pounding resentfully against their new hindrance.

 

Awkward crouch, both hands clamped on the leg, his head bent over the task, almost touching the white lolling head under a shock of black hair, no dark brown that looked black against that skin –

 

"ray..." Cold, feeble, that waft across his ear.

 

"Shut up Benny, stay with me, stay with me," Ray growled to the soaked thigh, every filthy word he knew flying through his head at seeing the blood trickling between his fingers, dripping – "Tell me when you're in the hospital and I show up to watch the game with you on that rotten tiny TV and eat your Jello." Elevation, hoist that son of a bitch higher than Fraser's heart, lift, oh god his back would never forget this, he'd never let Benny live this down, he'd milk it for all he'd get. Lift, lift his leg, don't think about lifting that heavy mahogany thing with brass handles, a Canadian flag draped across the top, Dief whimpering in the front row–

 

He'd been shot before, shot by Ray, shot worse than this, sprawled on the platform with his life draining away babbling, babbling a–

 

_She recited a poem, Ray._

 

A poem, a poem, oh shit he didn't know any poems –

 

Ray shook his head trying to loosen a thought, and his crucifix swung free around his neck.

 

Crucifix. The crucifix on the chain. The circle –

 

Ray bent over Fraser. "Now you listen, Benny, and you listen good," he whispered fiercely, pressing harder on the bleeding sites and ignoring the breathless cry of pain. "You hung onto her words and they kept you alive. Now I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do a rosary and you hang onto the words, you just hang on to the words, you listen and you hang on, okay? Okay?" Ray crossed himself in his mind, took another breath, closed his eyes, fumbled blindly, once, twice – found the beginning of the memory thread. He bent over Fraser's head again. "I believe in God the Father Almighty Creator of Heaven and earth –"

 

Once begun, the words unreeled like an audiotape ribbon from a spool. A born Catholic did not need the mnemonic device of the circle of beads – the prayers of the rosary were engraved in stone, in memory.

 

"...the communion of saints the forgiveness of sins the resurrection of the body and life everlasting amen. Our Father Who art in Heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come..."

 

The Apostle's Creed. One Our Father, three Hail Marys. One Glory Be. Then the five decades of the rosary, each decade an Our Father, ten Hail Marys and a Glory Be. Five decades for five Mysteries: the Joyful Mysteries for Christmastime, the Sorrowful Mysteries for Lent and Good Friday, and the Glorious Mysteries for Easter and funerals.

 

"...as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be world without end amen," Ray chanted. "First – First Joyful Mystery the Annunciation. Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come..."

 

Fraser's lips moved. No sound came out, but the memory of the Lord's Prayer fell from his lips. His eyes stared. Ray kept those eyes earthbound, looking into them. Like twin blue wells of pain, trying to look beyond, to another plane. Stay with me, Benny. Oh stay.

 

The fingers wrapped around Fraser's leg kept track of the Hail Marys, each one squeezing once to mark them as they were said.

 

"Second Joyful Mystery the Visitation" – where the _fuck_ was that fucking ambulance – "Our Father Who art in heaven hallowed..."

 

By the middle of the second decade Fraser was mouthing the Ave Maria as well as the Paternoster. "...holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death amen. Hail Mary full of grace the Lord is..."

 

 _Benny, will you ever forgive me if I turn you into a Catholic?_  They could go to Mass together, they'd go together, when he was out of the hospital–

 

Don't think, don't panic, just tie him to you with the words.

 

***

 

They were on Fortitude Pass but where was the snow? It was cold, but no snow. He must be freezing to death – he couldn't feel the snow any more. Ray was here, holding him, reciting the poem for him, he was so glad Ray was here with him.

 

 ***

 

Benny's pulse fluttered beneath Ray's sticky fingers, the wings of a butterfly trying to escape. Ray chanted Hail Marys on autopilot, while his desperate heart whispered a deeper prayer: _Sancta Maria, leave him alone, let him stay here, take me instead, take me, let him stay –_

 

But when had prayers ever worked that way?

 

This way was real, this steady repetitious chant, the attempt to reach the sacred through the mundane, the eternal via the carnal, this distancing of soul and will from physical self.

 

Keep the patient calm, assure him, steady the vital signs.

 

"...world without end amen. Fourth Joyful Mystery the Presentation. Our Father who art in..."

 

Sweet, sweet city sound – sirens. Getting louder. Ray never even slowed down. Temple to temple with Benny, feeling every breath the man made, he whispered the words into Fraser's ear.

 

The two knotted figures never looked up as the paramedics leaped out. Only when Fraser was physically prised from Ray's red grasp did he lean back, blinking and staring as the man was efficiently tended by the medics who had clamps and pressure bandages and so many other beautiful things.

 

Cop took down the name of the hospital, snapped out words in response, said and did the right things as the ambulance roared away. As other police cars zeroed in on the crime scene and squealed to a halt, Ray looked down, blinking stupidly at his red trousers. They'd been gray wool this morning.

 

_Thirty. Thirty suits of mine you've ruined now, Fraser._

**Author's Note:**

> Created as an offering to a Due South chat list in the late 1990s.


End file.
